Greensboro's News and Record is partly responsible
for these events occurring in our city,
as they don't seem to have an investigative anything
which looks into anything which would upset our incumbent leaders
and their well heeled elite supporters.
An examination of traffic stops and arrests in Greensboro, N.C., uncovered wide racial differences in measure after measure of police conduct.
OCT. 24, 2015
...an analysis by The New York Times of tens of thousands of traffic stops and years of arrest data in this racially mixed city of 280,000 uncovered wide racial differences in measure after measure of police conduct.
Simple Possession and Resisting/Delaying/Obstructing Public Officer statistics
obtained by City of Greensboro mayoral candidate Devin King
unreported by Greensboro's News and Record
and not mentioned by the New York Times
posted on Sunday, September 6, 2015
...in North Carolina’s thirdlargest city, officers pulled over AfricanAmerican drivers for traffic violations at a rate far out of proportion with their share of the local driving population.
Since 2010, officers searched blacks more than twice as often
but found contraband only 21 percent of the time,
compared with 27 percent of the time with whites.
New York Times,
which our papers didn't have the guts
to investigate or report
They used their discretion to search black drivers or their cars more than twice as often as white motorists — even though they found drugs and weapons significantly more often when the driver was white.
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| http://greensboroperformingarts.blogspot.com/2015/09/simple-possession-and.html |
Officers were more likely to stop black drivers for no discernible reason.
Five times as many blacks as whites were arrested on marijuana charges,
despite evidence whites use marijuana about as often.
And they were more likely to use force if the driver was black, even when they did not encounter physical resistance.
Bad News Greensboro Makes The New York Times
Billy Jones
...In Greensboro, which is 41 percent black, traffic stops help feed the stream of minor charges that draw a mostly AfricanAmerican crowd of defendants to the county courthouse on weekday mornings. National surveys show that blacks and whites use marijuana at virtually the same rate, but black residents here are charged with the sole offense of possession of minor amounts of marijuana five times as often as white residents are.
Justice for All
Ed Cone
And more than four times as many blacks as whites are arrested on the sole charge of resisting, obstructing or delaying an officer, an offense so borderline that some North Carolina police chiefs discourage its use unless more serious crimes are also involved.
Are we the next Ferguson?
Mayor Nancy Vaughan, who is white,
and who is surely partially responsible,
as she has known of these problems for years
while serving on Greensboro's City Council.
...Chief Scott, who assumed his post seven months ago, said he was withholding judgment until his own staff analyzed his department’s data. “We are not afraid to ask these questions,” he said. But so far, he added, “I don’t believe there is an underlying, systemic issue” of racial profiling.
...In a city that is 48 percent white, 75 percent of Greensboro’s force of 684 sworn officers remains
white.
...The Times analyzed tens of thousands of traffic stops made by hundreds of officers since 2010. Although blacks made up 39 percent of Greensboro’s driving age population, they constituted 54 percent of the drivers pulled over.
While factors like out of town drivers can alter the racial composition of a city’s motorists, “if the difference is that big, it does give you pause,” Dr. McDevitt of Northeastern University said.
NYT analyzes Gboro traffic stops
Posted October 24th, 2015 at 9:33 AM by Sam Hieb
Most black Greensboro drivers were stopped for regulatory or equipment violations, infractions that officers have the discretion to ignore. And black motorists who were stopped were let go with no police action — not even a warning — more often than were whites. Criminal justice experts say that raises questions about why they were pulled over at all and can indicate racial profiling.
Which the mayor of Greensboro and the rest of the City's incumbents
have knowingly ignored for years as they really don't give a shit.
In the past decade, officers reported using force during traffic stops only about once a month. The vast majority of the subjects were black, and most had put up resistance. Still, if a motorist was black, the odds were greater that officers would use force even in cases in which they did not first encounter resistance. Police officials suggested that could be because more black motorists tried to flee.
Simple Possession and Resisting/Delaying/Obstructing Public Officer statistics
obtained by City of Greensboro mayoral candidate Devin King
unreported by Greensboro's News and Record
and not mentioned by the New York Times,
posted on Sunday, September 6, 2015
In an interview, Chief Scott said that overall, the statistics reflected sound crimefighting strategies, not bias.
...“This is what people have been complaining about across the nation,” said Delores Jones Brown, a professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York. “It means whites are ‘getting away’ with very low level offenses, while people who are poor or people of color are suffering consequences.”
“It amounts to harassment,” she said. “And police cannot demonstrate that it is creating better public safety.” To the contrary, she added, it makes minority citizens less likely to help the police prevent and solve crimes.
...When a Greensboro officer pulled over Keith Maryland and Jasmine McRae, who are black, in Mr. Maryland’s burgundy Nissan early one evening in March, even that vast authority was exceeded, claimed Mr. Maryland’s lawyer, Graham Holt.
In an interview, Mr. Maryland said Officer Christopher Cline had told him that his registration had expired, although it was clearly valid for 15 more days.
The officer then said Ms. McRae, sitting in the back seat, “looked like someone” and asked to search her purse. Officers do not have to tell drivers or their passengers that they have the right to refuse, and like the vast majority of people, Ms. McRae agreed. The officer found a small amount of marijuana and several grams of cocaine and arrested her.
Mr. Holt said the stop was illegal because there was no traffic infraction.
Think Mike Barber gives a shit as he "mentors" young African American youths
with City of Greensboro taxpayer monies which he lines his pockets with
which the News and Record, the Rhino Times, Triad City Beat
and Yes Weekly won't report?
And in fact, a police corporal summoned Mr. Maryland to the station the next day and scrawled VOID across the ticket for an expired registration.
But the department and a city review board still found that the officer had acted lawfully. And Ms. McRae ended up pleading guilty to a misdemeanor charge of marijuana possession. She was sentenced to probation, incurring hundreds of dollars in fees.
Enlarging the bank accounts
of Greensboro's mostly white attorney class.
Police officials would call Ms. McRae’s search a successful “hit.” But most consent searches in Greensboro are not, especially when a stopped vehicle’s driver is black. Since 2010, officers searched blacks more than twice as often but found contraband only 21 percent of the time, compared with 27 percent of the time with whites.
The same gap prevailed when officers cited probable cause to search without permission. Officers searched blacks at more than twice the rate of whites, but found contraband only 52 percent of the time, compared with 62 percent of the time when the driver was white.
If those statistics are true, Chief Scott said, “we need to figure out how we can better serve our community in a fairer way.”
I am in favor of more transparency.
Numbers don’t say it all.
Greensboro's Chief Scott
...Five times as many blacks as whites were arrested on that charge, despite evidence whites use marijuana about as often. Mr. Phillips hired a lawyer, and a judge dismissed the charge.
"Five times as many blacks as whites were arrested on marijuana charges,
despite evidence whites use marijuana about as often.
...As Mr. Phillips and another black student, Gian Spells, drove through downtown one night, they said, a police officer pulled alongside, looked at them, then dropped behind and flashed his lights. “You cut me off,” Mr. Spells said Sgt. Thomas Long had told him, according to a complaint the students later filed alleging racial profiling.
Officers searched blacks at more than twice the rate of whites,
but found contraband only 52 percent of the time,
compared with 62 percent of the time when the driver was white.
New York Times,
which our papers didn't have the guts
to investigate or report
“Clearly, you’ve had too much to drink.” Mr. Spells said he had not had any alcohol and asked for a test. Instead, the officer ordered him out of the car — a command within his authority. When Mr. Spells refused, the officer threatened him with pepper spray.
Worried he might be framed again, Mr. Phillips said, he raised his hands in the air and told a second officer that he wanted to remain in his seat, only to be threatened with a Taser.
The students spent the night in jail, apparently because the officers said they were intoxicated. But they were never charged with drunkenness or reckless driving. They were charged only with resisting, obstructing or delaying an officer, or R.D.O., in police parlance. Since 2009, the Greensboro police have filed that charge — and no other — against 836 blacks but only 209 whites.
A judge eventually dismissed their cases. But in the meantime, Mr. Phillips said, a job offer was thrown into limbo when a background check turned up the pending criminal charge.
“That was probably one of the hardest things I had to face,” said Mr. Phillips, now 27, who was eventually hired. “Maybe missing out on a great opportunity because some police officer takes offense at something.”
The students’ complaint of racial profiling was rejected.
To this day, Mr. Phillips said, he does not understand why he and his friend were arrested.
But Lewis Pitts, a wellknown retired civil rights lawyer in Greensboro, sees no mystery. If a black motorist “does anything but be completely submissive and cower, then you get the classic countercharge by the officer that there was resistance, or disorderly conduct or public intoxication,” Mr. Pitts said. “Then they end up in jail.”
...Through a police spokeswoman, the Greensboro officers named in this article, all of whom are white, declined to comment. And partly because North Carolina law treats complaints against police officers as confidential personnel matters, accounts like Mr. Phillips’s remain onesided. Two years ago, Greensboro equipped all of its officers with body cameras and required them to film any searches.
But those videotapes are confidential, too.
Chief Scott said ...“I am in favor of more transparency,”
“Numbers don’t say it all.”
...Two police officers pulled them over for minor infractions that included expired plates and failing to hang a flag from a load of scrap metal in the pickup’s bed.
...Uncertain whether to get out of the car, Rufus Scales said, he reached to restrain his brother from opening the door. A black officer stunned him with a Taser, he said, and a white officer yanked him from the driver’s seat.
Temporarily paralyzed by the shock, he said, he fell face down, and the officer dragged him across the asphalt.
Rufus Scales emerged from the encounter with four traffic tickets; a charge of assaulting an officer, later dismissed; a chipped tooth; and a split upper lip that required five stitches.
Since 2010, officers searched blacks more than twice as often
but found contraband only 21 percent of the time,
compared with 27 percent of the time with whites.
New York Times,
which our papers didn't have the guts
to investigate or report
...One summer afternoon last year, the two men were walking down the residential street where their grandmother lives when a white officer passed them in his cruiser.
“Get out of the street, you morons,” they said the officer, Travis Cole, had yelled at them, although the street has no sidewalks. When the officer asked for their IDs, Rufus Scales said, he responded with a curse word. Officer Cole
then forced him to the ground and handcuffed him, he said.
“You can’t come out here running your mouth and cursing out in the middle of the street,” the officer lectured.
Officers searched blacks at more than twice the rate of whites,
but found contraband only 52 percent of the time,
compared with 62 percent of the time when the driver was white.
New York Times,
which our papers didn't have the guts
to investigate or report
Both men were arrested on charges that they had impeded traffic on the deserted street. Rufus Scales was also charged with being disorderly and drunk, although, he said, he was neither.
This encounter differed from the traffic stop in one crucial respect: Devin Scales pulled from his pocket his newly purchased handheld camera, recorded the episode and posted the video on Facebook.
After the brothers filed a complaint with the police, a prosecutor dropped all the charges. Officer Cole was suspended for two days. The city manager apologized.
I am in favor of more transparency.
Numbers don’t say it all.
Greensboro's Chief Scott
As Devin Scales wrote in the Facebook posting, which he said had drawn 10,000 “likes”: “This wasn’t the first time.”
A version of this article appears in print on October 25, 2015, on page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: The Disproportionate Risk of Driving While Black.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/25/us/racial-disparity-traffic-stops-driving-black.html?_r=0
